Miller: Ducks succeed with age-old formula

April 11, 2013

Updated Aug. 21, 2013 1:17 p.m.

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The Ducks' Teemu Selanne barely misses scoring on this shot in front of Dallas' Alex Goligoski during the third period of the Ducks' 3-1 loss to the Dallas Stars Friday night at Honda Center. KEVIN SULLIVAN, ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

The Ducks' Teemu Selanne barely misses scoring on this shot in front of Dallas' Alex Goligoski during the third period of the Ducks' 3-1 loss to the Dallas Stars Friday night at Honda Center. KEVIN SULLIVAN, ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

ANAHEIM – The Ducks don't have one player with as many as 14 goals.

The Kings have two. The Chicago Blackhawks have three. The Pittsburgh Penguins have four.

The Ducks, however, are better than each of those teams, better than the rest of the NHL, in fact, in one scoring measure: Geezer goals.

They've received 29 goals this season from players at least 36 years old. That's considerably more than anybody else.

"It might be because," Coach Bruce Boudreau said, "we have considerably more players 36 and over than anybody else."

Even if the explanation behind the numbers is simple math, the figures add up to something notable during what so far has been a very notable Ducks season.

After an underachieving and overcooked 2011-12, the Ducks had a chance to clinch a playoff spot at home Wednesday. That they instead went toes up in a 4-1 loss to Colorado was disappointing but hardly debilitating.

This team most certainly is bound for the playoffs, a destination the Ducks could have reached last season only by riding shotgun on the Tooth Fairy's unicorn. The postseason back then, understand, was absolute fantasy.

"This group just accepted the new guys so quickly," said defenseman Sheldon Souray, who signed as a free agent after spending a season in Dallas. "They made it so comfortable to be a part of the team. You feel like you have a spot here."

Souray is one of those veterans playing more like he's aging than aged. At 36, he has seven goals and is a team-best plus-26 while averaging 21 minutes. Only Francois Beauchemin and the red line have been on the ice more often.

Along with Souray, the Ducks have received significant offense from 42-year-old Teemu Selanne (11 goals) and 38-year-old Saku Koivu (27 points).

Radek Dvorak arrived from the Swiss Elite League and, in his first five games, the 36-year-old scored three times.

"They're good players and that's why they've lasted," Boudreau said. "If they weren't so good, they would have been done at 32 or something. ... They know how to prepare. They know how to play. They know how to get in shape. They know how to do all that stuff."

Just as important, at their ages, they still remember how to do all that stuff. Sorry, but it's just too easy to make old-people jokes in a world that seems to be aging backward.

Right now, there's a 14-year-old boy competing in the Masters and, after one round, he was ahead of Bubba Watson, Hunter Mahan and Louis Oosthuizen.

"Look at the Kings last year," Souray said. "They got some older guys in there, guys like Justin Williams and Willie Mitchell and Rob Scuderi. That's what makes great teams great. They have different levels of leadership, different tiers of players. This team is lucky. There's a good model here, a good mix."

Each of the Ducks' three goals in their past two games has been scored by a player older than 36. Before that, they beat the Kings, 4-3, with Koivu netting one of their goals in the shootout.

This is the perfect team to have an NHL rookie (Viktor Fasth) who's 30. It also was fitting last week that when the Ducks needed an emergency goalie for pregame warm-ups they signed a 42-year-old named Rob Laurie.

"Bruce was kidding Teemu saying, 'Hey, you're not the oldest guy on the team anymore,' " said Laurie, who lives in Corona and filled in until Igor Bobkov arrived just before a game against Dallas.

The Ducks invested a combined 16 years and $135 million in Ryan Getzlaf and Corey Perry this season. That's what teams do when attempting to lock down the future.

But without the contributions of these players with more yesterdays than tomorrows who knows where the Ducks would be today?

Once a top-heavy and thin offensive proposition, this team now appears to have the depth needed to do more than just reach the playoffs.

The Ducks' leading goal scorers are Getzlaf and Perry, both of whom have 13. There are 38 NHL players with 14 or more goals.

Yet, the Ducks remain the league's third-best team overall.

"We probably had a little fear in our bellies going into the year in Vancouver," Souray said. "You know, 'How do we measure up with Vancouver because they're supposed to be the big dogs?' Then, first time into Chicago. 'Hey, we're supposed to get skunked here. Let's see what we can do.'

"We've gained confidence as we've moved along. We're not watching the standings. We're just taking care of our own business. We want to win games at home. We want to go on the road and be a tough road team. We've been pretty consistent."

That's something that has been known to come with age, consistency. So far, the Ducks have had it, moving along as steadily as a clock that's ticking or a calendar that's flipping.

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